


A Losing Game

by OSAF



Category: The Prom - Sklar/Beguelin/Martin
Genre: Angst, F/F, I swear it wasnt supposed to be this long, So here we are, Songfic, Valentines Day songfic that got a bit too long, but then i got carried away, shelby-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29439903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OSAF/pseuds/OSAF
Summary: God, she knew it’d hurt, but she never imagined it’d bring her to the point she voluntarily suffered through Indiana’s cold weather in the beginning of February. The covering above the steps shielded Shelby from some snow, but the wind blew in the perfect way to screw Shelby over. Just like the rest of the world.By now, she thought she would’ve worked up the ability to move from her seat on the steps and stand up off her throne of self pity. Make a new sport and call it emotional distress, then maybe Shelby can succeed in something for once.
Relationships: Alyssa Greene/Emma Nolan, Kaylee/Shelby (The Prom Musical)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	A Losing Game

**_A broken heart is all that's left / I'm still fixing all the cracks_ **

__  
_ _

The cold air brushed against Shelby’s cheeks. She pulled her knees closer to her, hugging her legs in search for warmth. Her denim jacket rested on her shoulders, its movements as stiff as the wearer.

The first flakes of snow fell down, and Shelby’s tears started to do the same. She extended her shaking hands out towards the snow, melting each flake with the touch of her palm. The school parking lot hosted no cars, no people, nothing. Just Shelby in her baseball cap, sitting on the entrance steps to James Madison High School.

Her breath progressively grew unsteady, sharp and quick breaths in followed by shaky breaths out. It couldn’t be more than 20 degrees out. Shelby’s teeth chattered and soon the cold would grow unbearable. Her entire body grew numb, and the tears streaming down her cheeks were warmer than her.

God, she knew it’d hurt, but she never imagined it’d bring her to the point she voluntarily suffered through Indiana’s cold weather in the beginning of February. The covering above the steps shielded Shelby from some snow, but the wind blew in the perfect way to screw Shelby over. Just like the rest of the world.

By now, she thought she would’ve worked up the ability to move from her seat on the steps and stand up off her throne of self pity. Make a new sport and call it emotional distress, then maybe Shelby can succeed in something for once.

Though a strange hope, Shelby wished for her sorrow to turn to anger. She knew how to handle rage, but fury and bitterness were an entirely separate playing field as heartache. One could be dealt with through punching bags and breaking some insignificant item found in the basement. The other seemingly couldn’t be dealt with.

_**Lost a couple of pieces when / I carried it, carried it, carried it home** _

Staring into the distance as Kaylee walked away from the school building triggered a sensation Shelby never knew existed. Less of a singular emotion, more of a disgustingly painful blend of restlessness, animosity, and agony. Ten minutes later and she still couldn’t get the image of her head.

As she ran a hand through her hair, knocking her baseball cap off, Shelby released another sob. She sniffed and rubbed her nose, knowing she’d catch a cold, maybe more the longer she allowed herself to wallow in shame in the snow, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She didn’t care about anything other than Kaylee. Shelby cared about Kaylee’s manipulative behavior. She cared about her snide remarks and her negative comments directed towards anybody she deemed worthy of her bad attitude. Shelby cared that Kaylee left her.

To break something is to separate or cause to separate into pieces as a result of a blow, shock, or strain. Broken objects don’t get fixed. They’re tossed to the side and replaced. No amount of searching for all the pieces fixed a broken object.

A broken object like Shelby didn’t get fixed.

_**I'm afraid of all I am / My mind feels like a foreign land / Silence ringing inside my head / Please, carry me, carry me, carry me home** _

Shelby heard footsteps and a voice, but she assumed she’d imagined it. Then footsteps grew louder and faster.

“Holy shit, Shelby, how long have you been out here?” Shelby whipped her head around, and Emma Nolan stood hovering above her. A wool gray hat rested her forehead with a matching pair of gray mittens. She lowered her scarf to speak to Shelby, and her breath fogged her round glasses.

Shelby wiped her tears from her cheeks and sniffled lightly. “I don’t know. Maybe fifteen minutes.” Standing in the cold in a back and forth argument with Kaylee lasted longer than Shelby would like to admit, so the time she’d been outside inched closer to twenty minutes. “It’s really cold,” Shelby choked out before breaking into a coughing fit. The dry air irritated Shelby’s throat, but she’d concerned herself with her anguish more than the physical effects her reckless actions could have.

Emma slipped her mittens off and gestured for Shelby to take them. “Have you called your parents?” Emma glanced into the parking lot, which didn’t have Shelby’s car. Shelby couldn’t tell whether Emma stayed calm for Shelby’s benefit or her own, but Emma’s voice remained steady after the initial shock of Shelby being so self destructive.

Shelby shook her head and shut her eyes tightly. Her parents left her alone for the week, traveling to Pennsylvania for one of her sisters music competitions. Shelby opted out of going, and it seemed the second she made a decision on her own, everything around her crumbled to the ground.

“Then come home with me. You probably have frostbite or something, and I don’t trust you to take care of yourself right now.” A smart decision. Emma helped Shelby up and caught her as she stumbled over herself like an intoxicated mess. She guided her around the corner, and under normal circumstances, Shelby would’ve loved the crunching sound of the snow beneath her feet. Now she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy anything beside the thought of being out of the snow.

Each step stung Shelby’s feet, and she wanted nothing more than to be able to fall asleep. Emma’s truck, while still cold, had certainly been cozier than the wet concrete. Emma got on the phone, most likely her grandmother, but Shelby couldn’t even focus on their conversation. Her shivering grew more frequent and inconsistent, and everything turned into a huge jumble.

Emma’s truck had to be ten years old at the very least. The build and overall setup resemble something seven year old Shelby would see in a 2008 Ford commercial, curled up next to her older brother while they watched The Suite Life on Deck.

Even with Emma talking on the phone, the truck brought an eerie silence that made Shelby want to scream to fill the void, but she doubted if she tried screaming anything would even come out. The intended shout would come out closer to a croak, which would inevitably lead to a coughing fit.

Shelby’s throat burned, and the throbbing pain in her head rose to prominence. Slowly, Shelby’s ability to recall anything in the past hour faded, and it hurt her. It hurt to deal with so much emotion at once. To be in such a disoriented state while dealing with new, excruciating levels of emotional distress caused such a helpless and lonely feeling to wash over Shelby.

“Wait, so you said wrap core areas and keep her awake? And then-” Emma paused. “-okay, okay, I’m going,” Emma said, careful not to raise her voice. She handed Shelby her scarf and hat, but Shelby refused. “Shelby, if you don’t put the damn hat on,” Emma gritted through her teeth.

With the twist of a key, Emma started the car and immediately flipped the heat on but stopped Shelby from turning it up any higher than a slight warmth. “Stop touching stuff. I know what I’m doing.”

“No ya don’t,” Shelby countered, hating that her words came out slurred and blended together. Didn’t change that Emma one hundred percent knew nothing about medical aid. The closest she’d ever get would be playing Staying Alive on the guitar while somebody else did CPR.

As Emma pulled into her driveway, Shelby released a sigh of relief and gratitude. She would’ve moved eventually, but the physical effects of being in the cold for so long only would have grown increasingly severe.

Emma opened the door for Shelby and helped her into the house, still clearly not trusting Shelby to walk on her own. Again, with reason seeing as how Shelby trembled each time her foot pushed through the snow and hit the pavement.

Entering the house burned Shelby’s skin with the immediate and drastic temperature change, and she had to throw the mittens, scarf, and hat off as quickly as her stiff hands could manage through all of the shivering.

Emma led Shelby up the stairs of her house, but Shelby focused her attention on the decorations around the house. Photos and flowers everywhere. Such a welcoming house. She’d never been in Emma’s house before. On top of having no reason to, she never thought she’d be invited into her house with open arms after how poorly Shelby treated Emma for a year.

Shelby spent a year of her life hating on somebody no different than her. Emma fell in love. Emma made Alyssa happy and vice versa. Shelby had taken it upon herself to “protect” Alyssa. Protect her from what? Love? God, each time she thought back to how she behaved towards Emma and Alyssa, she clenched her fist and tried her hardest not to punch the nearest object. Shelby never hated Emma.

Shelby hated herself.

**_I've spent all of the love I saved / We were always a losing game_ **

Emma ran her bath water and then turned her heel to face Shelby and sternly added, “It’s warm but don’t you even think about adding hotter water.” Emma pointed to the bathroom and held out her hand to give Shelby a towel. Emma had taken her glasses off, and Shelby knew that somewhere in her mind. She _watched_ her take them off. And she couldn’t remember when. 

Shelby stepped into Emma’s bathroom, and as she prepared herself to get into the tub, she stopped herself to cry. Actually cry. Her breaths were loud, and she allowed herself to whimper and pout as much as she needed to. Anything to maybe get out the terrible pain in her heart.

She slipped into the tub and sat there. The wash cloth rested on the side of the bath, but Shelby didn’t desire to clean herself. She sat in the tub for two reasons. The water provided a warmth she needed to relax even just the slightest bit, but also, Emma stood outside the door literally preventing Shelby from leaving the bathroom.

A knock on the door grabbed Shelby’s attention, and she wondered if Emma would start questioning her. Emma poked her head through the door. “I’m just going to say it, I don’t trust you to sit in a full bathtub alone.”

“Why?”  
  


“Shelby, you sat in ten degree weather while it snowed for fifteen minutes. You couldn’t even form a sentence while we were in the car.”

Shelby furrowed her eyebrows and crossed her arms. “What are you talking about?” Shelby hardly talked on the drive to her house. 

Emma opened the door further and raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious right now? You were a mess the entire car ride. Not a single coherent thought came out of your mouth.” Emma lost Shelby with “coherent” a word she could usually define on the spot, but her overwhelming misery and physical pain trumped her random knowledge of etymology. 

Shelby got so fucked up she couldn’t even remember how fucked up she got. Shelby’s standards for herself were low, but that hung so far under the bar, she would’ve had to dig a hole in the ground to mess up so terribly. 

Another knock on the door. 

“Alyssa?” Emma asked in response to the knock.

“Yes, can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Emma said.

“No,” Shelby snapped back. She’d tried to avoid raising her voice, but the thought of Alyssa seeing her get babied by her girlfriend terrified Shelby. “What the fuck, Nolan?” Shelby said in a hushed tone. 

Emma sighed and leaned against the wall, darting her eyes around the bathroom, refusing to make eye contact with Shelby while she had no clothes on. “She knows more about this stuff than I do, and while my Gran’s on the way home, yeah, if you have frostbite or something more severe, we need to know. So I won’t let her in if you don’t want her here, but I wouldn’t recommend being so stubborn when it comes to this.” Emma waited for Shelby to nod, though she did it reluctantly. “Good. Come in, Alyssa.”

Alyssa ran over to Shelby almost immediately and knelt to be eye level to her. “Shelby? God, I thought I imagined it when I heard your voice. What happened?” Alyssa reached for Shelby’s arms and ran her thumb along Shelby’s knuckles before forcefully extending her fingers and flipping Shelby’s hand over to observe her palm, red and blistered from the cold.

“I found her sitting in the snow alone outside the school. She didn’t have anything on but a t-shirt, a denim jacket, and some jeans,” Emma explained. She didn’t mention anything about the crying. Shelby, while thankful, didn’t understand why Emma hadn’t offered up all the information at her disposal. 

Alyssa checked her phone though Shelby couldn’t see. “Shelby, how long were you outside?” Alyssa masked her panic, but not as well as Emma did. Uncertainty still crept into Alyssa’s voice. 

“Twenty minutes. Maybe more.” Shelby wiggled her feet around, hoping that maybe she’d regain feeling in her feet besides the burning sensation running through her body. Though she supposed the burning beat the grating sound of her chattering teeth. 

Alyssa sent Emma off to get a thermometer as she continued to watch over Shelby. “What happened, Shelby?” She reached for Shelby’s hands, which shook under the water. “You’ve got frostbite. Mild, thank the Lord for that, but who knows what would've happened if Emma hadn’t found you.” 

Usually Shelby would’ve rolled her eyes and laughed Alyssa’s warnings off, but she sounded so genuinely concerned and worried. It sounded like no Alyssa Shelby met. Alyssa hinted to her softer nature when around Emma, but that had never been directed at Shelby. 

Before Shelby could answer, Emma burst back into the bathroom, holding an entire first aid kit. “We have a lot of thermometers, and I didn’t know if it mattered which one I got.” Emma opened the red bag open, and Alyssa reached for one of four thermometers resting on the floor. 

Alyssa held the thermometer to Shelby’s forehead, sliding it back and forth. “Not hypothermia, but you definitely have frostnip. Also, Emma, why do you have four thermometers but zero bandaids?” Alyssa asked her girlfriend, who had been staring aimlessly at a wall. There couldn’t be a single thought crossing that girl’s mind.

“Why we don’t have bandaids? I really couldn’t say, but the thermometers were probably from when I quarantined here with the flu with Greg and Kaylee.”

Shelby flinched at Kaylee’s name, causing the water to splash violently. She’d let the cold numb her physically, and it almost had the same effect mentally, but Kaylee’s name sent Shelby to stage one of curling up in a ball, knees into her chest, head down to hide the puffy red eyes.

Alyssa stood up from her position and adjusted her red and yellow “Property of James Madison High School” sweatshirt. “Get cleaned up, okay, Gonzales. Here’s some clothes of mine for you to change into when you’re done.” Alyssa and Emma walked out of the room, leaving Shelby to her own devices.

**_Small-town boy in a big arcade / I got addicted to a losing game_ **

Shelby soaked in the tub for what had to be thirty minutes before forcing herself to drain the water and change into the long sleeve turtleneck and leggings with the warm, fuzzy material on the inside. She felt better physically even if her cheeks and earlobes still burned from the cold. 

She wandered down the steps, following Alyssa’s voice talking to Emma into the kitchen. She had a bowl of soup in her hands as she sat at the glass table. Emma, who sat opposite Alyssa stared intently at the console she had stood up on its stand, the small controllers gripped in her hands. 

Betsy Nolan noticed Shelby standing awkwardly in the hallway first and glanced her up and down before softening her gaze. Shelby figured she’d be met with suspicion from Emma’s grandmother, but when she let her guard down, Shelby followed suit. “I have soup waiting on the counter if you would like some.”

Emma and Alyssa shot their attention towards Shelby who had been hugging her arms tightly. “I feel that I should clarify,” Emma started, “unless you’re allergic to chicken noodle soup, you don’t have a choice. You’re drinking the soup.” 

Alyssa nodded solemnly. “What she said. If you won’t take care of yourself, we’ll do it for you. Also, _drinking?_ You eat soup, not drink it.”

“It’s a liquid therefore a drink.”

“I can’t even explain how wrong you are.”

Take care of yourself. Shelby maintained a fairly good schedule compared to the average person, let alone a highschooler. She woke up, cooked breakfast for her and her sister, and got them both to school on time. She finished her homework the day of regardless of cheerleading or whatever favor Trent may have asked of her. 

But when it came to interpersonal relationships? Yeah, no, Shelby didn’t “take care of herself.” A short temper but a non-confrontational attitude never ended well. Anxiety prevented her from standing up for herself when it came to the people that mattered, but her short temper caused her to be upset with them so frequently. A combination worse than Alyssa and chemistry. 

The soup tingled Shelby’s fingers, but in a pleasant way. Less of an overwhelming heat, more of a soothing warmth. Even Emma and Alyssa’s warning that she had to eat didn’t encourage her to do anything more than stir the broth around and stab at the chicken with her spoon. 

“When was the last time you ate?” Ms. Nolan asked Shelby, pointing her larger spoon used for stirring large pots at Shelby. 

No lunch that day, or breakfast for that matter. And she slept through the night before she could make herself any dinner.

“Yesterday at lunch, ma’am,” Shelby answered honestly. She doubted Betsy Nolan could be lied to easily, and lying did her no good. She had to trust that Betsy, Emma, and Alyssa were trying to help her, and making up the last time she ate prevented them from that. 

Betsy lowered her spoon and sighed. “Eat,” she said firmly. Even though she didn’t feel hungry in the slightest, Shelby didn’t dare try to argue against Emma’s grandmother. Shelby felt the soup running down her throat as she took small sips from the paper bowl. 

With the physical torment fading, Shelby’s thoughts slowly made their way back into her mind.

_“Kaylee, I can’t go through with this if it doesn’t mean anything to you. It means everything to me. So please, tell me honestly. Do I mean anything to you?” Shelby asked, Kaylee an inch away from her face. Kaylee’s hands rested slightly above Shelby’s waist, creeping up to her back._

_Kaylee nodded. “You mean everything to me.” Kaylee took her hand and held Shelby’s chin, pressing their lips against one another._

Before Shelby could start crying, she wiped her eyes. She held her fingers to her temples and shut her eyes tight. Alyssa, who had left the kitchen to talk to Emma in the living room, softly talked to Emma about Shelby, probably assuming she either couldn’t hear her or didn’t care enough to listen in on their conversation. 

“She was crying when I saw her, and she’s really disoriented. Like, she doesn’t remember half of the car ride.”

Alyssa glanced over to Shelby before continuing on talking to Emma. “Her parents aren’t home right now. Probably how she managed to get this messed up.” Alyssa’s tone, while still calm, hinted at her inner fear. 

Emma tugged at her hair, twisting it around repeatedly. “She seems distraught. Is there anything that may make her feel better? A favorite TV show or movie. Maybe a game?” Emma suggested.

That came down to whether Alyssa could remember Shelby’s favorite TV show, movie, or game. They’d discussed it albeit only briefly. But Shelby still knew that she’d mentioned them. She could tell Alyssa her favorite movie. 

Alyssa snapped her fingers repeatedly, the way she did when trying to jog her memory. Her mother told her saying “um” didn’t demonstrate maturity. “Her favorite movies are Coco and the 2007 Hairspray with Zac Efron.” 

Emma smiled lightly. “Greg is quaking.” 

As Shelby downed the rest of her soup, Emma and Alyssa scrolled to find Coco on Netflix, and Shelby couldn’t tell if they forgot the search bar existed, or they were choosing to not use it. Stupid either way. 

Seeing them together ached Shelby’s heart. Not only because of the way she treated Emma, but because she didn’t have anybody to love who hadn’t broken her heart. Torn it apart, let it shrivel up, and die. 

_Shelby woke up in her bed and rolled to her side to be greeted with nothing. She grabbed for her phone and fought through her tiredness to read the text on her phone from three hours ago at five in the morning._

**_Kaylee_ **

_Sorry_

_Shelby gripped her phone tighter before slamming it down on her bed. “Sorry,” she muttered. “What do you mean ‘sorry?’” She choked on her words and reached for her throat._

Shelby hated herself for being so broken over it. Without Kaylee, she could only aimlessly go about her day, wondering what she did wrong to want somebody who couldn’t care less about her. She followed her for so long because it had been easier, but now she had nobody to follow. Not her emotions were the only thing to guide her. 

Alyssa dragged Shelby along to the couch and handed her a large blanket. “Come on, we’re watching Coco.”

**_Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh / All I know, all I know_ **

“You are _terrible_ at this, Nolan,” Shelby said. The fact she’d been at Emma’s house for over three hours slipped her mind because Alyssa and Emma took it upon themselves to challenge Shelby to a Super Smash Brothers Ultimate challenge, Shelby and Emma vs. Betsy and Alyssa. “Alyssa, can we swap partners. I don’t want your girlfriend on my team anymore.”

Emma scoffed and fake stammered. “Homophobia,” she proclaimed before Alyssa knocked her off the screen again. Shelby should have counted every time Emma said “homophobia” about a minor inconvenience in the last hour alone. 

Desperate for the last word, Shelby fired back, “I’m bi.” 

Alyssa and Emma both loosened their grip on their controllers, staring at Shelby blankly. Shelby never planned to admit that as a comeback while playing a Nintendo game. Shelby never planned to admit it at all. She thought maybe she could just live her life and acknowledge it as little as possible.

While Emma and Alyssa were too busy staring at Shelby, trying to process the atom bomb she’d casually dropped, Betsy and Shelby were going head to head, fighting for the smash ball.

“First of all, focus on the game, I like to win, Nolan. Two, nobody wants to be gay in Indiana,” Shelby briefly explained while chasing Alyssa around the screen with her final smash. 

Emma paused the game and dropped her neon green Joy-Con. “Yeah, no shit! You think we don’t know that.” Emma stammered for real this time, tripping over her words. Her voice toed the line around anger and slowly inched closer and closer. “How long have you known?”

Shelby shrugged. “I’ve been out of denial since April-ish, but I’ve probably known since I was eleven or twelve.” Shelby remembered being backstage of her church nativity play, before she even lived in Edgewater, when a girl in the grade above her, who played Mary, taught her how to ballroom dance. “Can we keep playing the game now? I was just about to destroy Alyssa with the final smash.”

Emma shook her head, but Alyssa spoke. “Do you mean to tell me that throughout the entire prom situation, you knew you were gay?” 

Shelby nodded slowly, and Emma cursed under her breath. Shelby glanced to Betsy, who watched from her recliner chair, with an expression Shelby couldn’t decipher. A smirk or a frown maybe. “Look, can we move on. I don’t feel like having this conversation right now.” 

Emma unpaused the game, and they continued on playing the game. The silence killed her, but it beat having a heart-to-heart about Shelby’s sexuality. And if they were playing the game, nobody would ask her about why she forced herself to suffer through freezing cold weather.

“Shelby, would you like to stay the night? I think it’s for the best.” Betsy held her phone tightly. The woman seemed to have a new phone every time Apple threw a new one out into the public. God knows how much money she blew on upgrading her phone every year while Emma held onto her iPhone 6 because “I like the audio jack.”

Shelby nodded. And Betsy began to dial her parents phone. “Hi, this is Betsy Nolan. My granddaughter, Emma, was slightly worried for Shelby, who seemed a bit out of it today at school. Shelby-” Betsy held her phone for Shelby to take it, but she didn’t know what to say to her parents.

“¿Papi? No creo que pueda estar solo en este momento. Sólo quiero dormir y nunca despertar.” Shelby choked over her words, but hearing her father's voice through the phone calmed her down even if only slightly. 

Alyssa and Emma glanced at each other, neither of them speaking enough Spanish to fully understand what she said.

“¿Puedo quedarme aquí esta noche?” She pleaded with her father, who still sounded reluctant. Shelby hated how she had the voice of a thirteen year old whenever she talked to her parents. The toughness she built up in public disappeared when it came to her parents. 

She hung up the phone and sighed. “He said yes.”

Smiles crept up on Emma and Alyssa’s faces before they both exclaimed, “Sleepover!”

**_Loving you is a losing game_ **

“Okay, Shelby, I don’t want to ruin the mood, but now that my gran isn’t hovering over us, what happened to you.” Emma sat on her bed, her legs folded over each other. She waited to bring up the elephant in the room until after she explained each of the posters she had hanging in her room, including all four Riverdale posters. 

Shelby, who snuggled into a bean bag chair in the corner of Emma’s room with a black and red Valentines day blanket. “Where do I even start?” Shelby ran through the events to the best of her ability and decided on one moment to begin. “Kaylee and I had sex. Four days ago.”

Alyssa stopped her chewing and her hand shot up to her mouth to cover the cookies in her mouth. “Kaylee’s gay?” Shelby almost laughed at Alyssa’s reaction if she hadn’t been too busy watching Emma, who had no reaction at all. Alyssa picked up on Emma’s lack of shock too and raised her eyebrows. “Emma.” She paused. “Did you know?”  
  


The thought Emma might have known never crossed Shelby’s mind, but it made sense. She and Kaylee were childhood friends, and there were probably things they knew about each other Shelby and Alyssa never heard about. 

The soft and controlled “yeah, I knew” that escaped Emma’s mouth only proved that. She had to have known for years at that point, but she kept it a secret all those years. “But that’s not the point of this conversation. We can expand on that at a later date.” Emma refocused the attention back onto Shelby. 

“Before we had actually done anything, I told her that I couldn’t go through with it if it didn’t mean anything to her. I made her tell me that I wasn’t just a game or an experiment.” Shelby thought back to Kaylee trailing her hands along Shelby’s cheeks, whispering lies into her ear. “She left in the middle of the night with nothing but a text saying sorry.”

A low whistle came from Alyssa, which didn’t entirely surprise Shelby. Kaylee and Alyssa butted heads more than they ever agreed, and Alyssa could keep a grudge if she deemed somebody worthy of it. 

“I tried confronting her about it almost everyday, but she wouldn’t even look at me. That is until I called her a bitch.”

“Bold move there, Gonzales.”

Alyssa threw a small pillow at Emma and tossed her hands in the air as if to say ‘not the time.’

Shelby rubbed the top of her finger tips, feeling the blisters from the frostnip. They hurt like hell, and even though Betsy drove off to get a bit of Advil, Shelby had to suffer through it for the time being.

“We argued. A lot. But the main thing was when I called her a liar. She was walking away from me, and I said she was a manipulative, cruel liar. I’ve never seen somebody whip around so quickly in my life. I ask her again. I asked her if it meant anything, and she told me everything she’d said that day was a lie.”

Shelby continued on, fighting the tears that threatened to begin streaming down her face. “I remembered that she told me she cared about me that day, and when I mentioned it to her, hoping she’d take it back, she repeated it. ‘Everything I said that day was a lie’ and walked away.”

Emma’s mouth hung open, her eyes full of hurt. She started to try and respond, but she stopped herself after every sound she made. 

Shelby never dealt with such a strong passion for a person before Kaylee, and she had to face the fact she’d been manipulated by the only person she might’ve ever said she loved. Shelby always knew Kaylee could be mean. She heard the mocking of other students. Hell, she watched her break into Emma’s locker to vandalize it with some slur multiple times.

Alyssa spoke first. “Tomorrow, the three of us are going to the mall, okay. I’m not letting my friend sit here and sulk because some girl broke her heart. You deserve so much more than that, Shelby.” Alyssa scooted over to Shelby to hug her, and Shelby never felt safer than sitting with Emma and Alyssa in that moment.

**_How many pennies in the slot?_ **

“Forty dollars for 250 chips is highway robbery,” Emma exclaimed, reluctantly swiped her debit card for her and Alyssa, blowing eighty dollars at the arcade in the mall. 

Emma and Alyssa dragged Shelby to the mall, telling her she would only feel worse sitting on her ass sulking. They stopped Shelby by her house to let her change into more suited clothes for the mall, Alyssa saying “fake it till you make it.” 

Shelby tossed together an outfit she’d dedicated to when she needed to appear cute despite any nasty thoughts in her mind. Her favorite black beanie coupled with her light blue denim jacket boosted Shelby’s confidence for reasons unknown to her. 

“Do you think I can get a jackpot on at least one of the games?” Shelby asked, searching for some goal, hopefully serving as motivation to focus on anything but what lingered in her mind. Before she could dash over to some random game to try and beat some kids high score, her phone buzzed.

‘kayleek added to their story.’ 

Despite her better judgement advising her not to open the notification, the devil on her shoulder tempted her. She uploaded a photo of her and Nick. At the mall. The caption read ‘at the mall with the bf,’ and Shelby rolled her eyes in disgust. 

“Is that Kaylee?” Emma said, peering over Shelby’s shoulder. She nudged her glasses back onto her nose and tugged Alyssa’s arm to take her attention off of the flashing lights on one of the arcade games. Such a complex personality yet such a simple person to entertain. Shelby had seen Alyssa staring intently at an episode of Spongebob Squarepants because she’d never been allowed to watch it. 

Alyssa raised her eyebrow at the photo before smirking mischievously. “How funny would it be if we ran around the mall and reenacted every photo she took?” 

“Is this payback for when she copied all of our prom photos with Nick?” Emma laughed.

“This is _totally_ payback for when she copied all of our prom photos with Nick,” Alyssa countered. “The nerve of that girl, I swear.”

Shelby hated hearing about whatever new argument Alyssa and Kaylee managed to get themselves in, Shelby being the common link between the two, but in the moment, she found herself smiling at Alyssa’s “petty prom photo payback proposal.”

“Can we do it?” Shelby turned to Emma, who seemed to be the decision maker at the time. Alyssa concerned herself with revenge more than logic, and Shelby couldn’t make a smart and healthy choice if her life had been the price. 

Emma stared at the two game cards she’d just purchased sadly. “I just spent eighty dollars though. I kinda wanted to play games.”

“We’ll be back, it's fine,” Alyssa bargained. Shelby learned the hard way, don’t try to debate Alyssa. She formed her thoughts so well on top of the endless amount of factual and statistical evidence she appeared to have at her disposal.  
  


Emma caved, and Shelby reassured her that she hadn’t missed out on winning any prizes because she would’ve lost all the games anyways. 

The first photo had Kaylee and Nick next to each other on a large rock right before the mall entrance, their foreheads pressed together as if they were posing for a magazine only the most suburban moms would even know existed.

Emma and Alyssa pressed their heads against each other, and once Shelby took the photo, the three girls hurried back inside, rushing to get out of the cold. Shelby’s violent coughing briefly returned due to the extremely dry winter air, but she convinced Emma and Alyssa she didn’t need to leave. Physically speaking, Shelby’s blisters were there but the pain medicine masked the hurt, and so long as she didn’t break any of them, she should be fully healed in no time. 

“Caption it ‘at the mall with the besties' because it would annoy her,” Alyssa suggested, breathing onto her fingertips, probably ensuring she didn’t end up like Shelby. 

Shelby went along with it and posted it before she could doubt herself. They trailed along through the mall until one of them noticed another picture pop up on their Instagram feeds. In between each mini photo shoot, they would pop their heads into the stores they passed, trying on dresses and suits they’d never buy. 

Ignoring her problems solved nothing long term. Shelby accepted that. But damn did it fill the void in her heart to buy a remote control drone. 

**_Giving us up didn't take a lot_ **

“Holy shit, Kaylee is like charging towards us right now,” Emma said, rapidly tapping the table. If they were to cross paths, the food court would be the place for it to happen. Navigating the mall without cutting through it had to be a conscious decision, and who cared enough to waste their time doing that. “Do you think she’ll say anything?”

Shelby turned back to see Kaylee and Nick hand in hand darting towards their table. “Who knows? She’ll either try to ignore me or ignore it all together.” Being ignored. Such a common and simple thing that nobody appreciated. To wake up one day and decide that a certain person didn’t deserve a response was such a foreign way of thinking to Shelby. 

Alyssa broke off small pieces of her cookie and shrugged. “If she does come over, will you be okay?” 

Shelby thought it over and couldn’t think of an honest answer. Building up walls had been one of Shelby’s many talents she developed over the years, giving her the non-confrontational attitude that caused her to be so compliant despite her better judgement. Shelby also tore down her walls to release her bottled up emotions in dangerous ways. Not harmful to others or herself physically, but mentally she solved nothing.

Too slow to think of an answer, Kaylee stopped beside their table, Nick trailing behind her with his dumb, confused expression. “Look at that! Nick and I were just talking about how weird it was we hadn’t seen anybody from school yet. But here you all are.” Kaylee’s enthusiastic tone died down with each word, her true emotions seeping through. Jealousy. Bitterness. Hostility. 

_Look at that. She does have feelings. All incredibly negative, but they’re there_ , Shelby thought, trying to not grin at her own remark. 

Emma responded to Kaylee first. “Kaylee, did you see the video I sent you earlier today?” She smiled, and Shelby couldn’t decipher whether it had been genuine or not. Thinking back on it, Emma avoided addressing anything about Kaylee the whole time. As Alyssa openly expressed her opinions on the situation, Emma sat silently. Shelby passed it off for her being inattentive, but Shelby doubted that could be all it was.

Kaylee glanced down to her phone, her expression softening when she looked away from Shelby. “I didn’t even see you sent me anything. Anyways, we were just off to stop by the game store, did you guys want to join us?” Kaylee offered. 

“We were actually going to head to the arcade again. I blew way too much money to not use it today.” Emma declined, beginning to clean her food up having finished eating. Emma wiped her glasses off using her shirt as Kaylee walked away. 

Shelby kicked Emma’s shin under the table. “You were texting her this morning? That’s like the highest form of betrayal.”

Emma slid her glasses back on, sighing heavily. “She asked me a question. I responded. Trust me, I didn’t tell her anything.” 

“What’d she ask?”

“Not my place to say.”

Emma was so kind, and it pissed Shelby off. Chances were it had something to do with Kaylee’s sexuality, but Emma’s reluctance to mention anything about how she knew about it in the first place suggested there were more layers to the story yet to be revealed.

**_I saw the end 'fore it begun / Still I carried, I carried, I carried on_ **

“Hey, Emma,” Shelby began, drumming her fingers to the music in Alyssa’s car. They booted her to the backseat against her will because ‘I’m not putting my girlfriend in the backseat,’ which sounded like a reasonable answer, but it didn’t make Shelby any less disappointed. “You know how you said we could expand on you knowing about Kaylee at a later date? It’s a later date.”

Alyssa nodded, just as desperate for the story as Shelby. Emma hung her head low and fiddled with her thumbs and fingers. 

“Kaylee was my first kiss.”

Shelby expected the car to jolt to a stop after Alyssa snapped her head to the side and gripped the steering wheel tighter. “What?”

Emma tugged on her seatbelt, getting progressively more antsy as time passed. Her legs bounced, and she found a new thing to do with her hands every ten seconds. “It’s just as confusing to me. She called me a dumbass, told me she had a crush on me, and kissed me, and I was too stupid to process anything while it was happening.”

Shelby couldn’t help but laugh because even then, Emma had no thoughts in the slightest. Truly a miracle how academically well she performed but how clueless she managed to be. “Did you like her?” 

Alyssa raised her eyebrow, glancing at Emma, waiting for her answer. They had pulled into Betsy Nolan’s driveway, and Alyssa folded her hands in her lap. 

“I mean, yeah. On top of the fact she was like my only friend, we did everything together. When I came out, I just endured the pain knowing that she was just severely closeted.” 

“So this is a running theme? Confessing and then being too far in denial to follow-up.” Shelby’s anger crept back in, wishing she acknowledged the red flags telling her pursuing Kaylee could only end in disaster. Deep down she did know. She tried to stop it by convincing herself if she asked Kaylee if it meant something, Kaylee might tell the truth. But clearly lies were the only thing she knew. 

Kaylee’s hands were warm. She used to take Shelby’s hands and cup them on her own, laughing about how cold Shelby’s hands were, going ‘cold hands, warm heart.’ The real reason her hands were cold? Anemia. Shelby figured Kaylee didn’t need to know that, and she would just appreciate the feeling of their hands touching.

When Kaylee touched Shelby that night, her hands didn’t feel warm. They burned. Not in the literal sense, but Shelby knew each time they kissed it would only end poorly. She carried on because she loved the mere thought of Kaylee feeling the same way, and her wisdom lost its battle against her heart. 

**_Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh / All I know, all I know_ **

Shelby stayed the night at the Nolans the rest of the week, not because she chose to, because her parents told her to. When she went to her father and told him she wanted to fall asleep and never wake up, it frightened him to say the least. 

“My dad’s going to ask me what happened. What do I tell him?” Shelby asked Emma who strummed away on her guitar, chords to a Taylor Swift song pulled up on her computer. They sat in silence in Emma’s bedroom, Shelby blindly swiping through Tik Toks.

When Shelby’s brother left for college, her family paid for his flights back home for Thanksgiving and Christmas to guarantee he made it home for the holidays. Her parents attended every event Shelby had to go to because of cheer and made an effort to get her little sister to them as well. As they spoke, her parents supported her sister and her passions despite the distance. 

Emma held the strings of her guitar, promptly shutting them up. “I’m going to be blunt with you. Things will either work out, or they won’t. I’m an optimistic person, okay, Shelby. I believe there’s good in everybody, but I also know from experience that people can suck. If you tell your parents, it’ll either go well, or it won’t.”

Shelby appreciated the straightforward response, but she would have rathered a straightforward answer. Shelby decided days ago she couldn’t tell her parents the truth about what happened. Shelby believed that her parents loved her more than they cared about whatever preconceived notions they had about the LGBTQ+ community. 

Shelby cared about confessing to her parents about her actions, not what the actions implied. Gay, bi, pan, trans? They’d be over whatever Shelby told them by the time it came time to watch their family show at 8:30.

Having sex? She’d never hear the end of it. “Are your grades slipping” or “is this because of those girls on the cheer team? Did they tell you to do this?” And no excuse Shelby came up with would convince her parents to lay off her. 

Emma tapped the body of her guitar and stared at the corner of her room. “If you’re planning to do anything but tell your parents the truth, I doubt it’ll work because you’re a really shitty liar and can’t keep a secret for your life.” Emma read her mind before continuing to pick the strings of her guitar creating a sweet melody. Shelby occasionally forgot how talented Emma was, but every time YouTube acted like she hadn’t memorized all the lyrics to Unruly Heart within the first hour and repeatedly put it in her recommendations, she remembered the capabilities of Emma. 

“I can keep secrets,” Shelby responded. 

“Name one time you managed to keep any secret from literally anybody.”

“I kept it a secret that we were planning a fake prom.” Shelby reached for the cup of peach tea Betsy made for her and sipped slowly.

Emma muted her next strum and flipped Shelby off. “Seriously though, Shelby, the truth will come out eventually. Don’t wait too long to the point it’s not you lose the ability to be the one to tell them.” 

Shelby and Emma created themselves a weird bond, being in the same house for the past four days. In her state of emotional vulnerability, Shelby vented to Emma, and Emma listened. Though Emma didn’t open up in the same manner Shelby did, Shelby doubted Emma had ever genuinely ranted to Alyssa. The last thing Emma Nolan would want to be was a burden as Shelby learned.

Emma expressed herself in other ways. Inviting Shelby to play video games or teaching her a song on the guitar. At one point, they flipped through an old container filled with stories Emma wrote throughout elementary school, complete with terrible grammar and poor spelling. A nice change of pace to laugh and smile with no risk of any unwanted feelings resurfacing due to some story that struck close to home because all nine year old Emma wrote about was dragons. 

The Nolan household was safe.

**_Loving you is a losing game_ **

Shelby approached her locker and her hand shot to her mouth when noticing the outrageous red and pink decorations stuck to the red locker. When she started to read the handwritten notes, she smiled uncontrollably seeing “your secret admirer” in fancy calligraphy. 

Alyssa tapped her shoulder and gestured to the pink hearts taped to Shelby’s locker. “Somebody’s popular. Who are they from?” Alyssa said teasingly. Alyssa twisted the sleeves of her white shirt and readjusted her fluffy pink vest. Her detailed plan to match outfits with Emma on Valentines Day reminded Shelby that Alyssa Greene was still Alyssa Greene no matter how petty or chaotic she may get.

As Shelby explained to Alyssa whoever left them wanted to be anonymous, the first bell for class rang, warning the students in the hallway to hurry off to class within the next four minutes or so. 

Shelby had never been the center of attention. To anybody. Middle child whose few accomplishments were overlooked by her brother's athletic accomplishments or her sister’s solo in a choir concert. Shelby never led, only followed. She allowed herself to be unnoticed because she convinced herself the spotlight would hurt more. 

Maybe being somebody’s focus would make things easier. Based on how being ignored led her to wish for nothing but more pain, perhaps a change of pace could be just what Shelby needed.

Though barely, Shelby managed to navigate the halls of James Madison High School and avoid Kaylee the entire day. She anti-stalked her. Shelby knew Kaylee’s schedule so well and each stop she made as she went to her classes, putting off the awkward moment that would inevitably transpire when the two of them faced each other without Emma and Alyssa to serve as buffers.

Emma drove the both of them to her for the last time; Shelby’s parents returned to Indiana the next morning. “Did you ever find out who your secret admirer was?” Emma questioned, glancing at Shelby through her mirror. 

Shelby stared down solemnly at her backpack, which hosted nothing but the large, heart shaped cards. “No. Why? What are you hiding, Nolan?” Shelby accused. 

Whoever it did end up being would have a rough time finding out Shelby pined after somebody who couldn’t care less about her. Shelby had never been one for melodrama, but she decided it was perfectly reasonable for her current situation. The sulking and pouting and crying every night after Emma fell asleep were merely coping mechanisms for the anguish and pain. 

Every bad idea crossed Shelby’s mind at one point. Ones she would never say aloud, and things she didn’t have the courage to commit to. In the moment, Kaylee’s betrayal took up most of the space in Shelby’s head, but that’s not to say there weren’t other issues picking away at her sanity. Every outburst of anger and broken object hovered over her head like a rain cloud whose only purpose was to ruin Shelby’s peace of mind. 

People described Shelby as independent frequently. A strong, confident young woman. Adults praised her for her academic achievements and neglected her mental health, on a rapid decline. Shelby never called herself independent because she never agreed with that descriptor. Stubborn? Sure. Intelligent? Absolutely. 

But Shelby wasn’t independent. “All or nothing” captured Shelby’s essence more accurately than any other characteristic people threw onto her. 

Nothing. Limited confrontation. Avoided new people like the plague. Stayed away from making her voice heard. Loss of motivation.

All. Eruptions of anger. Bold actions. Outwardly positive attitude. Doing anything for a person should they ask for it.

God, everything came back to Kaylee didn’t it? Shelby loathed herself for allowing herself to be so attached to somebody so unpredictable. Shelby put herself in the position of codependency, and now she begged to escape because the pain of being left alone had been too much for her to bear. 

Everything came back to Kaylee.

**_I don't need your games, game over / Get me off this rollercoaster_ **

**_Kaylee_ **

_meet me behind the school_

_under the bleachers_

_6:30_

Shelby burst into a fit of sarcastic laughter, grabbing Emma and Alyssa’s attention. They all sat in the living room while Betsy ran to grab them donuts from the bakery to wrap up Valentines Day and end on a high note.

So much for the high note.

“What is it?” Alyssa asked, her hand intertwined with Emma’s. Alyssa talked to Shelby more in those four days than she had after knowing her for years. A wake-up call to Shelby to examine her relationships closer.

Shelby reluctantly showed Alyssa the text. “What do I even say to that?”

“You could not say anything,” Alyssa suggested, her expression serious and thoughtful in all ways. Shelby knew Alyssa held no fondness for Kaylee, and she tolerated her solely because of Shelby. The two butted heads more often than they agreed on anything. 

Emma frowned slightly, but Shelby caught onto it. “Not that you have to, but I think it would be better to meet her. When Alyssa and I weren’t speaking, she asked me to meet her, and I did. It made things easier.”

Alyssa turned to her girlfriend, offended snatching her hand away. “You mean when you broke up with me?”  
  


“That’s not what I meant,” Emma said, reaching for Alyssa's hand again like a toddler reaching for a pacifier. “I got closure, and things worked out in the end. And you can’t deny that at the time, we both needed that.”

Despite being aware that the two briefly split up, the interaction still shocked Shelby. Emma and Alyssa were the definition of soulmates in the romantic sense. The idea the two of them reached a point they had to break up could only serve to be disheartening.

But they got back together. As Emma said, at the time, they needed a break from each other. 

Shelby recognized she needed a break from being anywhere near Kaylee, but she also realized sitting on Emma’s couch, wondering how everything got so fucked up did her no good. Shelby needed closure.

Shelby drove to the school alone, thankful that the snow held off long enough for her to safely drive on the roads. 

This time around, she had a puffy brown jacket, gloves, a hat, and a scarf. Emma tried to get her in ear muffs, but Shelby’s pride would never let her wear them. 

She knew what to expect, going to see Kaylee. A half-hearted apology and the proposal to forget it ever happened. That’s what she did all the time. Every fight, argument, or minor disagreement. Kaylee convinced Shelby to ignore it and pretend everything was fine. But she wasn’t going to give in because everything was _not_ fine.

Shelby turned the corner to the bleachers and saw Kaylee sitting on the concrete, playing with pebbles on the ground. Her arms were bare and exposed, and her leggings looked too thin to provide any real warmth. 

Kaylee hadn’t noticed Shelby yet and innocently ran her fingers along the concrete before she scraped her finger on a sharper edge. She yanked her hand away and shook it violently and then examined it to look for blood. 

“Dumbass,” Shelby chuckled lightly, hands in her pocket, watching Kaylee entertain herself. 

Kaylee’s head snapped to Shelby, and she scrambled to stand up. “Jesus fucking Christ, Shelby, don’t do that!” She nervously looked around, most likely confirming nobody else was in earshot. Shelby doubted anybody was eager to spend their Valentine's Day on school grounds, but at the same time, Shelby had spent her Valentine’s Day on school grounds. “I want to apologize.”  
  


“Oh, really, I couldn’t tell. Usually your apologies are one word texts at five in the morning.” Shelby’s voice edged closer to anger than she intended. She wanted to stay as composed as possible and allow her mind to dictate her actions, not her heart. “Just tell me one thing. Why did you lie to me?”

Kaylee grabbed at her arms, her skin turning red. She sniffled and tugged at her bright pink earlobes. “I didn’t lie to you that night. When I told you that it meant everything, I was being honest. It did. It does.”

“Then why did you tell me it didn’t. Why did you tell me you didn’t care about me? Do you know how much that fucking hurt?” Shelby replayed Kaylee’s words in her head over and over, trying to understand them, and now she was being told that she wasted days throwing a pity party because Kaylee lied. 

Kaylee threw her head back and stared up at the sky through the gaps in the metal bleachers before she wiped her eyes. “I was scared. I still am. But I want you to know that I care about you.” Kaylee turned her back to Shelby and reached for something in her silver backpack. When she turned around, Shelby clenched her fist tightly. “I hope Emma didn’t ruin the surprise.”  
  


Kaylee held a red and pink decorative heart, same as the ones taped to Shelby’s locker throughout the day. 

“I appreciate the thought but no. You don’t get to come to me with a kind gesture on Valentine’s Day and act like you didn’t tell me I didn’t matter.” Shelby told herself to be confident. She could only stand up for herself if she felt safe and secure. “So thank you for the kind notes, but I can’t keep doing this.”

**_Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh / All I know, all I know / Loving you is a losing game_ **

Kaylee held her hand to her mouth, and her breathing grew heavier. Her eyes began to water. It killed Shelby. To see her like this and know that her words got her to that point. But thinking back on Kaylee’s words and how they affected Shelby, she did nothing wrong. She told the truth and her honest thoughts. 

“This is the worst breakup ever, and we were never even dating,” Kaylee joked, her tears starting to roll down her face. 

“Been there before. God, I wish we were. I wish we could’ve spent Valentine’s Day together and skipped the tears,” Shelby confessed, in an attempt to make Kaylee cheer up slightly. “But whatever this relationship is right now can’t carry on like this.”

Hating people consumed a lot of energy. They lived in your mind, eating away at your humanity as you trashed on even the smallest things they did. But loving somebody who didn’t realize how much you care about them. As you fall in love with all of their quirks and fidgets, they become a part of you. And when they pull away, you’ve lost a part of yourself.

**_Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh / All I know, all I know / Loving you is a losing game_ **

Shelby began walking away from Kaylee to drive herself to Emma's house for the last time when she noticed the empty parking lot. She turned on her heel and sprinted back to the bleachers, snow starting to fall around her. 

She saw Kaylee, curled up in a ball, head down, knees in her chest, with only a t-shirt and a backpack. Oh, how the tables had turned. “You don’t have a ride home, do you?” Shelby asked, warmth filling her heart when Kaylee looked up and shook her head. “Then I’m driving you home. I’m not leaving my best friend in the snow in the middle of February, okay. Doesn’t change what I said before this, but I’m not letting you do that to yourself.”

Kaylee nodded, rubbing her eyes. Shelby handed her the red hat and gloves she had, insisting Kaylee wore them at least until the car had heated up. 

“Hey, Kaylee.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop kissing people and bailing on them cause you’re scared.”

“Just how much did Emma tell you.”

Shelby smirked as she started the car. “Enough.”

Kaylee hung her head low but smiled. “I am going to kill her.”

**Author's Note:**

> I swear it wasn't supposed to be this long. Hope y'all enjoyed it though because writing it was literally the most chaotic process ever.


End file.
